


i see you

by sitaara



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Laurent is having a hard time dealing with his trauma and Damen holds him through it, M/M, Mentions of past child abuse, idk it’s sad but maybe healing, post Kings Rising, written in lapslock bc i’m lazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 09:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sitaara/pseuds/sitaara
Summary: he could not unmake the years and undo what had been done to laurent, could not erase the pain or the deep-buried damage, but he could do this. he could do this.





	i see you

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to [this song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVZA4qYpEM) a lot while writing this

damen wasn’t sure, for a moment, what had disturbed him into wakefulness. the room was still dark, the only light from the slow glowing lamp in the corner, the sheets wound warm and silken around him. laurent’s body, rigid against his side, fever-hot. laurent.

he became aware, rapidly, of the tight, harsh sound of laurent breathing in the space between them. laurent was lying stiffly curled on his side, body turned towards damen, his hair falling over his face. the lamplight fell over the pale curve of his back, the bared line of his neck, the golden strands of hair. he was frowning, his hands fisted tightly, his chest rising and falling quickly, each breath a difficult, choked sound. it made damen’s chest hurt.

“laurent,” he said, soft, lifting one hand to stroke laurent’s sweat-damp hair back from his face. laurent made a sharp, aborted sound when damen touched him, and then he was awake, the long-lashed blue eyes very wide and very dark. he stared at damen, stared through him. damen watched as laurent wrested that hard impeccable control over himself even before he became aware of himself, and of damen, watched as laurent’s face went still and blank, the gasping breaths caught and tamped down, whatever emotion he was struggling with swallowed with a cruel exertion of that iron control.

“laurent,” damen said again, questioning. “what is it.”

“i,” said laurent, his voice raw, and stopped. there was a line on his cheek where the crease of the pillow had pressed against the soft skin.

“were you dreaming?”

laurent’s eyes flickered, and he shut them tightly, the golden fringe of his lashes bright in the lamplight. after a long moment in which damen said nothing and laurent breathed slowly, laurent said, “did i—” he stopped. he had opened his hands, but there was nothing relaxed about the way he held himself, every muscle taut with tension.

“you were gasping. in your sleep.”

“oh,” said laurent. he turned onto his back, away from damen. stared up at the ceiling. damen waited.

“did i,” said laurent finally. “say anything.”

damen let out a long breath and pushed himself up on one elbow, so he was looking down into laurent’s carefully still face. laurent followed damen’s movement with his eyes the way a trapped animal might follow the movement of a hunter. “no,” damen said gently. “you were only,” and he paused, searching the inexplicable tangle of emotion in laurent’s eyes for some sort of explanation. “breathing, like—like you were having a nightmare.”

“a nightmare,” laurent said, and made a sound that could have been a breath of a laugh but had no amusement in it. damen felt rather than saw a fraction of the tension in laurent loosen. laurent said, “yes.”

it was what damen had known, but more than he had been expecting laurent to admit to, and there was something about hearing the confirmation from laurent that made the hurt in damen’s chest press tighter. “do you want to tell me about it?”

for a moment he thought laurent would actually tell him. he watched laurent struggle with it for a long moment. “i don’t want,” laurent said, his sweet mouth twisting bitterly around the words, and then he pulled his eyes away from damen’s, turned his head away. “i can’t think,” he said instead, the words pressed out through a force of will, “when you look at me—like that.”

“how do i look at you?” damen said, and when laurent said nothing, damen reached a careful hand out and cupped laurent’s head, turning his face gently, firmly, towards damen. “laurent.”

laurent did not close his eyes this time. there was something honest and vulnerable about the way he looked up into damen’s face, as though he were caught there, almost helpless under damen’s gaze. his voice was quiet when he spoke. “like you think i am—something beautiful.”

it was not what damen had been expecting, and he shook his head a little, confused. laurent’s beauty was not something that laurent flaunted, or even actively used in the way he used everything else at his disposal. but he was not, damen knew, unaware of himself, nor of the effect he could have. “you have never—i am not the first person to think you beautiful, laurent.”

“no. not that.” a faint line appeared between the fine gold brows. “i don’t mean—” he made a short frustrated sound. “i don’t speak of, of beauty.” laurent lifted his hand, the one with the gold cuff glinting warmly around the slender wrist, and brushed his fingers against damen’s cheek. there was something very young about it, the motion tentative, wondering, as though still, even now, even after everything between them, he was uncertain of how he would be received. damen turned his head into the curve of laurent’s palm and closed his eyes. felt laurent’s hand cradle his cheek for a moment and then pull away.

“don’t open your eyes,” laurent said.

out of some deep-rooted understanding, damen obeyed. he lowered himself onto his back, so they were side by side on the bed, their shoulders and arms brushing. he could sense laurent’s stillness, the tension of it, a hard knot of feeling caught between them, around them.

laurent took a long, even breath, released it. “you look at me,” he said, “damen. as though you think i am the most wondrous thing you have ever laid eyes on. and i cannot—i am afraid—” his voice closed up, abrupt. he said then, “i am afraid you will look at me, and it will be different.”

something welled in damen’s throat, heavy, painful. he opened his eyes, slowly, blinking. the moment was exquisitely sharp, like cut glass against tender skin. “i love you,” he said simply, and felt the weight of his words hit laurent. damen turned then, onto his side, looked into the familiar lovely face and understood. “i love you,” he said again, soft now, and felt the joy of it grow in him, winding around the pain. “laurent.”

laurent’s lips parted. his eyes were very dark, the pupils blown out, swallowing the blue. “damen,” he said.

“don’t be afraid,” damen said.

laurent squeezed his eyes shut. “you know i—you heard my uncle. you know.”

it hurt. it hurt so badly that for a minute damen did not have words. the hot-cold rage boiled up inside of him, making his chest burn with it, as it had at kingsmeet. he had killed then, blindingly, had laid men on the ground at his feet like a child knocking over toys in a fit of uncontrolled anger. but the regent was dead. he was dead. there was only laurent, now, and this. damen said, “we don’t have to speak of it, if you don’t want to.”

“it disgusts you,” laurent said, and then laughed, short and bitter. “i disgust you.”

 _“no,”_ said damen, shocked. “no. laurent, it is not like that.”

laurent said, opening his eyes, “it deserves disgust. he was my uncle.” there was something flinty about him, brittle, like a bright shell of armor coming down over the flash of vulnerability he had allowed earlier. “that is incest,” he said, and damen had a sudden nauseating flashback to standing on the rocks at marlas, and laurent unjacketed and vicious and narrow-eyed in front of him, these same words and the wound of auguste’s death made fresh again between them.

“you were a child,” damen said. a dozen different emotions battled through him, thorns in his stomach, in his throat. he wanted to reach out, to touch and comfort, but knew instinctively that laurent would not want it, not right now. it took an effort to keep his hands still in the space between them. “you were only a boy, laurent.”

“i was not,” laurent said harshly, “unwilling.”

damen flinched. laurent continued, ruthless, “did you think he forced me? i wanted—i _liked it,_ liked that he was giving me attention, that i was special, like i like it with you—” 

_“stop,”_ damen said. “stop.” they were both breathing quickly, laurent’s gaze knifelike, the pain in damen’s chest a physical pressure.

“you begin to see,” laurent said. his smile was a narrow, glittering thing. “i begin to disgust you.”

“i know what you’re trying to do,” damen said, and sat up, the sheet slipping away from him. he saw laurent’s entire body tense as he did it, saw something like fear burst in the backs of his eyes and vanish, so fast damen might have imagined it. it was, damen thought, like a knife slipping between his ribs, registering the flash of unconscious fear in laurent and knowing it was he, damen, who had put it there.

but no. this, too, was the regent’s doing. “you’re wrong,” damen said, and heard the timbre of his own voice, half a growl. “i see you, laurent. and you do not disgust me.” he leaned forward then, covering laurent’s slender frame with his own body. laurent’s eyes widened infinitesmally, his breath hitching. they were balanced on the knife point now, hot and open and painful. “nothing you say,” said damen, low and even and certain, “will ever change that.”

“damen,” laurent said, and then, something breaking in him: _“damen.”_

“yes,” damen breathed out, and laurent was reaching up, winding his fingers into damen’s curls, clutching hard enough to hurt. he was shaking, the controlled tension cracking and dissolving into violent tremors, his whole body hot and trembling with it. “laurent,” damen said, like a prayer, “laurent.”

“please,” laurent said, pleaded, and damen’s heart caught and shattered a little as with both hands laurent drew damen’s head down towards him. the full lengths of their bodies pressed against one another. “damen—kiss me—”

he did, dizzy and drowning with the feeling of it, this feeling of laurent’s slender body beneath him, burning up against him, the need and fear and love in the blue eyes, the soft lost noise laurent made into damen’s mouth as damen kissed him. the way laurent unfolded to him like he wanted to press himself into damen’s chest, like he wanted damen to devour him. it hurt, and he let it, let laurent kiss him back like he was trying to pour his own pain into damen’s mouth, like he trusted damen to take it up and hold it for him.

the kiss broke, and damen let himself settle back into the bed, caught laurent up against him as the shudders went through him in waves. laurent never cried, and he didn’t cry now, only shook apart silently in damen’s arms as though the struggle inside him did not yet know how to find the simple relief of tears.

it was a long time before laurent was spent and still, but eventually his breathing quieted into an uneasy rhythm, and he slept. damen held him, and listened to him breathe.

he could not unmake the years and undo what had been done to laurent, could not erase the pain or the deep-buried damage, but he could do this. he could do this.


End file.
